Voters in CA & NY – We want more FAIL

While voters across the country more or less roundly rejected democrats and their failed socialist agenda on election day, those on the left and lefter coasts (NY and California) proved that they are gluttons for even more punishment.

In NY (results here) the republicans picked up 5 House seats but 21 incumbent democrats, including corruptocrat Charlie Rangel, won by mostly wide margins. They elected corruptocrat Andrew Cuomo for governor, although his challenger Carl Paladino was certainly no prize, and both democrat senators were re-elected. In the state legislature dems retained their huge majority and it looks like they may gain control of the senate for the first time since the ’60s.

California voters elected Jerry (Moonbeam) Brown as governor and re-elected Barbara Boxer to the senate. Inexplicably bucking a nationwide trend against incumbency, every incumbent (republican and democrat) retained their seat in the House races. The real kicker however, came in the form of the adoption of Prop 25 and the rejection of Prop 23. The passage of Prop 25 essentially provides an overwhelmingly democrat legislature an open checkbook with the state budget (with its $20B deficit). Prop 23 would have suspended the state’s draconian carbon emission regulations, which have been driving businesses out of the state, until unemployment (currently at 12.5%) reaches 5%. What the hell are these people thinking??? Roger Simon (from Pajamas Media) has this to say about the election:

Is the Golden State hopeless and headed for bankruptcy? After the 2010 election, it doesn’t need a forty-plus year resident like me to state the obvious — and how!

Yes, last Tuesday, running counter to most of the rest of country, the citizens of one of the most beautiful and bountiful pieces of real estate on Earth, not to mention many of the globe’s most innovative companies, simply stuck their heads collectively in the sand and said: Bring it on!

Now sure, Whitman and Fiorina weren’t the greatest campaigners since Harry Truman. But come on — look at the alternatives. Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer were already proven adherents of economic catastrophe. They have neither the will nor the motivation to turn things around. They were both elected with the unstinting support of the very unions whose bloated pension plans created the current intractable financial crisis in the first place. Bankruptcy looms.

Call it bankruptcy or call it shmankruptcy, you either can pay your bills or you can’t. California, which has already suffered the ignominy of paying many through IOUs, is heading for a situation where no one will take its IOUs.Now — and here is the nub of my piece — whatever you do when this happens, do not allow anyone to bail us out. Not one penny. Not the federal government, the Heart Fund, the Community Chest, the World Bank, UNICEF, or even George Soros. Do not take up a collection in your places of worship or set up a food bank. And above all, do not make California into some giant state version of General Motors. It didn’t work for the auto company and it will not work for us.

The only solution is for California to suffer — and to suffer badly. The citizens of this state need a serious beat down. This was the place where Jane Fonda popularized “No gain without pain.” Well, time for the pain. Remember the “Summer of Love”? Time for the “Summer of Tough Love.” And the Winter, Fall and Spring as well.

…another division is likely to compete for center stage in the next two years: the split between, on one side, California and New York—two states, deeply in debt, whose wealthy are beneficiaries of the global economy—and, on the other, the solvent states of the American interior that will be asked to bail them out. This geographic division will also pit the heartland’s middle class and working class against the well-to-do of New York and California and their political allies in the public-sector unions.

While most of America turned toward the Republicans in this election, Democrats strengthened their hold on California and New York. In California, they won all the statewide offices and even made gains in the legislature, prompting the Orange County Register to describe the Republicans as having been reduced to “almost total irrelevancy in Sacramento.” In New York, Democrats similarly swept all the statewide offices and may have held on to the state senate, too, though three contests are still too close to call. Those three races are all that stand between New York’s GOP and a similar irrelevancy.

The mood in much of the rest of the country was quite different. In the nation’s interior, Republicans gained ten governorships and may have picked up as many as 20 state legislatures. In traditionally blue Minnesota and Wisconsin, both houses of the legislature are now in Republican control. This sets up what could be an ugly fight in which a Tea Party–inflected national Republican Party, encouraged by its strength in the interior states, forces California and New York—now heavily dependent on federal subsidies—to reduce their spending sharply. The coastal giants would no doubt respond by threatening defaults, which could affect the credit standing of the entire country, since many of the bonds are held by foreign investors. The upshot would likely be a high-stakes conflict about free trade, globalization, social class, race, illegal immigration, and public-sector unionism.

Given the mood of the rest of the country and the popularity of reformers like NJ Gov. Chris Christie, how likely will it be that the rest of us want to bail out CA and NY? Especially when their citizens have brought this upon themselves?

When the voters in N.Y. for example are given a choice for Governor, between politics as usual Cuomo and an embarrassment of a loose cannon like Palladino (who I might add was endorsed by the Tea Party) should they have voted instead for “the Rent Is Too Damn High” candidate? When people are presented with a choice between awful and totally unexceptable, who should they vote for? When the political parties offer up people who are known to be tainted, when candidates do nothing but throw dirt at each other instead of talk about the issues, what do you expect people to do? Does all the blame go to the people who put these clowns in power, or shouldn’t we blame the whole broken down political process, because clearly it’s not working. This country is being torn apart because everybody thinks that their way is right and there is no common cause or goals anymore. And now we have a movement to let California and New York just whither and die. Not everyone in those states espouses or supports the candidates or prevailing ideologies that the winning candidates are working for. United States, bah, why don’t we just change the name to Divided States?

No doubt Paladino was an awful candidate but at least he would have injected some humor into your state government to take the edge off the misery. His election would have been the ultimate statement of voter dissatisfaction, no? And don’t get so hung up on the governor race – with few exceptions, NY returned every single incumbent to the House and Senate. You kept the state legislature in the hands of the democrats and possibly turned control of the state senate to the democrats. Doesn’t sound like the majority of voters in NY are all that unhappy with your plight, does it? Same goes in spades for California.

As for allowing CA and NY to “wither and die,” what should the rest of the country do when the citizens of these two near bankrupt states refuse to even try to reform things? Not only refuse but double down on the scumbags with their hands on the flush handle. Wither and die? I think not, but a serious dose of reality is in order. When someone (or a pet) in our family was refusing to eat my Dad used to say, “When he starts shittin’ wind, he’ll eat.” This same crude logic may well apply to NY and CA at some point. When you’re drowning in debt and no one will accept your IOUs, when the last of the productive people and businesses leave and there’s no one left to steal from, either you’ll change or shit wind. But don’t point a gun in my face and tell me I’ve got to pony up to save you. When you want to join the United States again, let us know.

Our two party political system is indeed broken but the solution (yes, there are solutions) is not to sit back and lament the fact that you only have a choice between bad and worse. I know I might sound like a broken record on this subject but the TEA Party presents hope that we can change the system and eventually fix much of what is broken. It didn’t happen overnight and it certainly can’t be fixed overnight but there is hope. Have you tried to learn more about the TEA Party? Have you attended a rally? Do you talk to your friends and neighbors about what can be done? Have you supported TEA Party candidates? I’m not saying they’re the be-all/end-all solution but at least they’ve started a dialog and gotten people involved. They’ve also shaken up the political establishment on both side of the aisle. Remember this: They’re. Not. Going. Away.